The president of a US-based Saudi lobbyist group stated on Twitter that the emir of Qatar's alleged support of Iran and "insults" against Riyadh could see him suffer the same fate as Egypt's deposed president, Mohamed Morsi.

Salman al-Ansari, of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), sparked outrage by saying: "To the Emir of Qatar: regarding your taking the side of the extremist Iranian government, and your insulting of the custodian of the two holy mosques.

"I want to remind you that Mohamed Morsi did the same thing and ended up isolated and imprisoned."

Translation: President of what is known as the Saudi lobby in the US boasts of organising a coup against Morsi and promises the state of Qatar with the same fate! Saudi must absolve itself from these remarks

Translation: This guy wanted to defend Saudi, and ended up boasting its support for coups

Recent events have strained relationships between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours.

Qatar was subject to hacking in recent weeks, when hackers posted a fake story quoting Qatar’s leader, and they didn’t hold back in their responses.

The fake story hit Qatar’s official news agency website and Twitter account causing ripples of reaction across the Gulf, leading to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to both block Qatari-based news outlets including Al Jazeera from broadcasting in their territory.

In addition, the Qatar News Agency's hacked Twitter account carried a false story in Arabic apparently from the country's foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, about Qatar withdrawing its ambassadors from several nearby countries.

"There is a hostile media campaign against the state of Qatar, which we will confront," al-Thani said, adding the campaign was "particularly in the United States".

Many users considered this attack by al-Ansari to be a dangerous development, with some understanding it as the threat of a coup.